


Silent Walls

by Ellynne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sprite's Pandemic Pomptathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23572510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Ellynne
Summary: In a cursed Storybrooke, isolation means survival (maybe).
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	1. Belle

The world is exactly two rooms large. And it is silent. She never speaks.

They are ordinary rooms, nothing dramatic. She is not trapped in cell or dungeon. There is even a bathroom, most prosaic and uninspiring of rooms. It doesn’t have a tub, just a small shower. Often, especially on chilly days, she would love to lie down in warm water with fragrant oils or scented salts and forget . . . everything there is to forget, a world larger than this small space, voices, music, crowds. 

But, there is safety here and comfort. Somewhere, beyond these narrow bounds, there is a tank of hot water that never runs out. In this world, that is luxury, that is indulgence, and she is not ungrateful.

There are other indulgences. Towels, a toilet, even a modest washer and dryer. She is especially glad for the dryer. She could manage with her clothes, but there is not enough room for her sheets to dry if she had to hang them up in here.

She wonders if, before the world grew so small, it could have been something else. A janitor’s closet? It is about the size of one. The pipes for filling buckets or washing off the filth of an especially filthy day could be made over into a shower. A miniature laundry for coveralls in emergencies. 

Strange to remember such simple steps were once enough. Maybe more than enough. A mop, a bucket, a pair of coveralls carelessly dropped in the wash. Maybe there had been grumbling over the needless expense to feel safe back in another world, another lifetime.

Whatever it was, there is no one to tell her the story, and she can only guess in this quiet, hidden space. It is not hers. She knows that. For all she has been granted refuge and sanctuary, it is not hers.

The other room is larger. She thinks it must be some sort of den. There are shelves and a large, antique desk that doubled as a work table, going by the things she found cluttered on it. There is also a bed, sturdier and a bit bigger than a cot, comfortable, which is all she can ask. She sleeps easily in it. Or she does on the nights she does not think too hard and too long about the things that keep her up at night.

She wishes for something to break the silence on those nights, for a voice to speak to her, to promise her a better world when she wakes up or just to share her fears. She thinks of her mother, long dead, who must have sung to her—she is sure she sung to her—when she was small and afraid.

She tried not to think of these things. Truly, she has so much, more than she ever hoped for in those last, desperate moments when death was closing in. She closes her eyes, and tries to focus on this small, safe world and not the terrifying one beyond it.

A few drawers and a rod where she can hang clothes, the ones she came here with and the ones she found. They were odds and ends, not her size, not even meant for a woman. But, she also found needle and thread. She has time and thinks she might even be presentable if there were ever anyone else present.

There is a microwave, a hotplate, a small fridge less than half her height. She found a mat rolled in a corner and lays it out when she exercises, a needed task to keep restlessness and fears away.

And there are books. So many, many books.

The shelves are crammed full of them. She has read them all but worries about the day she runs out of room for more.

There are other worries behind that, the dark thoughts she tries not think, about a day when this refuge reaches some unspoken limit, when water (hot or cold) ceases to flow.

When books are no longer written.

She does not let herself think of these things (or tries not to). Where to put books, where to keep them, that is as close to the fear as she can allow. 

She remembers coming here. Or she thinks she does. Details fade, eaten by fear or time. She remembers being on the street and having nowhere to go. She was desperate, running. She remembers that, terrified of being caught outside as the moments closed in on her, afraid to cry out, to ask for help, to make any sound at all. Time was counting down, the last siren was sounding. She had only seconds to find a safe place before she was caught outside—when it would be too late—but all the doors were locked and barred. 

That was when she heard a voice calling to her. 

“Over here! This way!”

Or that was what she imagines being said. What other words would make her stop, turn, and see the hope they offered her? But words slip away when she tries to remember them. The words and the ones who spoke them, they all fade like a strange dream. 

It was a man’s voice. That it is the one thing she is sure of, warm and rolling, with something musical to it, a voice she trusted.

She misses music. Even now, fear grips her when she tries to speak, choking back the words.

It gripped her then. The man (if there was a man) was gone almost before she started running towards the voice. There was no door when she got here, but there was a window (there is still a window hidden behind thick curtains that hide the light and that she dares not look out). It was low enough to the ground that she could hoist herself in (just barely, but fear gave her a strength she is sure she never had before, confused and murky as the past is). She remembers slamming the window shut and drawing the heavy shades, thinking “Just in time.”

Or she hoped it was in time. The days passed (she thinks they passed, but there is no clock and she can only guess at the movement of the sun), and she has had no sign of illness. She is sure—nearly sure—she is not infected. But, who can tell?

The room has one door. Every few days, there is a knock. It is the only sound she ever hears besides the sound of her own steps or the beating of her own heart. That is what she counts, her heartbeats, a hundred of them from the sound of that knock till she steps towards the door that marks the final border of her world. This is part of the agreement, though she cannot remember how it came to be made—how it could have been made. But, she knows, as certainly as she knows that outside is death, these are the rules, and she abides by them. 

A count of a hundred. Then, and only then, she opens the door. 

There is a small space on the other side, about the size of a closet. It is the narrow shore of another world, the border of a land separate from the one she inhabits. To the right is another door, leading down to a basement. She has never opened it, never been down it, but she knows (without ever asking how she knows) what is there. It is also locked, another thing she knows without ever testing, a certainty she does not need to try.

A second door is across from the one she has opened. It may or may not be locked. She hopes it is because that would be safe, safer for both of them. She knows the one who called her in has saved her life and, not for anything in the world, would she endanger him.

In that small space between three doors, three worlds, are things she needs, cans of soup, bread, vegetables (sometimes fresh, more often in icy cartons or cans). There may be thread or yarn, needles, and other things she can make use of. 

And books, there are always books.

They are old books, often written in, paperbacks with loose pages, leather bound volumes with cracked spines. Passages are underlined. Notes are written in margins. 

Never messages. She does not expect them, does not look for them, would be frightened if they were there. It is as if words could make a bridge spanning the barrier between them, a bridge that other things could travel. 

The handwriting is not always the same. She thinks the books have been gathered from many people. What they wrote, what they found important enough to mark is not always the same. She catches glimpses of other minds and hearts.

But, there is writing she has come to recognize, writing that is in nearly all the books. The comments it makes are clear and sharp. They shape words with intelligence and biting wit. She thinks she knows the passages that hand underlines as well. They are the ones that jump out at her, brilliant and sharp.

She adds her own notes to the others, marking the things that have meaning for her, wishing the world was different, safe (surely it was safe, once? Surely, she remembers a world different from this one. Or does she only imagine?). Sometimes, she wishes she dared step outside this tiny space.

But, she knows better. The mere thought, if she holds it too long, chokes her with fear. 

And yet.

He is out there. He saved her. He gives her words that feed a need greater than hunger, knowing the risk. The memory of his voice is the only music she remembers.

To step out of this world is to look for death. To step beyond her threshold, to go into _his_ world is to offer him death when he has risked so much already to save her.

So, she stays here, trapped, hidden in silence, wordless, waiting for the day that may never come when the world is large again and full of dreams.


	2. Gold

He is a man living alone (or almost alone) in a large, silent house in a small town. He never leaves. The curtains are drawn. The doors are closed. He knows the outside world only through messages, words on a computer, text on a phone. These are, on the surface, impersonal and empty. For the most part, they speak of numbers. Look a little deeper and they speak of debts paid or owed, money spent or earned, still empty and soulless, like the silent streets outside. A little deeper and they are hopes and fears, life and death. He sorts them calmly, sending messages of his own as needed. Some of them are as cold and empty as the numbers themselves seem to be. Some of them are as glittering and sharp as broken glass.

He never looks out on the empty streets, never sees the faces of neighbors, tenants, enemies, and the one or two souls who might, mistakenly or not, call him friend (just as they never see him). But, there are other ways of watching the world, and he watches it closely. If he were asked, he would say (gold tooth flashing in what, if there were anyone to see, only the most desperate and hopeful would call a grin) that there is not a sparrow that falls in the borders of this town without him knowing (take that as you will).

But, there are still hours to be spent out of each quiet day. There are objects to be dusted. Some of them strange and mysterious, some with labels scrawled in a spidery hand that would raise the eyebrows of strangers if they read them, some in languages no one born in this world could read. He glances over them, if he notices them at all. That they are there, that they are safe and as they should be is all that matters. The rest can be forgotten for now.

There is a cello that he has learned to play, an antique instrument that great musicians would give gold and a few their souls to own. He remembers playing badly when it first came into his hands. That must have been long ago, though cannot remember playing it anywhere outside the one room where it is carefully tended and kept. Now, the sounds that come from it are as smooth and rich as darkest honey. He has, over time, become worthy of his instrument.

Yet, nothing in his face suggests the music means anything to him or that he hears it at all. It is only an intellectual exercise, no more. There are no other listeners. The sound does not carry out of his rooms, not even to that one, small place which is and is not his.

And there are books, thousands of books. He reads some of them every day. Some are used, a few of the many treasures sold or traded away by those who found themselves needing other things more, whether roof and food or drink and one last gamble. Here and there, a bit of their souls is scrawled in the margins, words that frightened, amused, or had made them think. Dangerous things to give away, he knows.

Despite that knowledge, he still jots down thoughts or feelings of his own, unafraid. After all, they are his, and he never gives away what is his (if there were anyone to give them to, anyone who could cross his threshold and see what is within).

And yet.

And yet, every few days, he gathers things, food, necessities, books. He takes them to a certain door within his house. He opens it. He sees the door on the other side, knocks, and leaves, closing the first door behind him.

There is something important behind that door. He knows it but, like the scrawled labels he never looks at long enough to read or the strange books whose contents he (and he alone) would understand if he bothered to open them, the thought never quite reaches the surface of his mind.

Yet, a part of him knows, as the disaster unfolded, as they fled and cowered behind their doors, he saw something (someone? That is another thought he never allows himself to think. But, what else could it be, but a desperate soul trying to outrun the death that stalked their streets?), like the last flurry of winter snow fleeing the rising sun. Sanctuary was offered and accepted. Rules, never spoken but understood, silently guard the tenuous balance of life.

Like the empty, soulless numbers he searches through each day, that is the surface.

There is something beneath the surface.

Beneath, beside, apart. Behind the man he pretends to be and truly believes he is, there is another, the truth that follows him like a shadow, a ghost, the truth haunting the lie he is content—or almost content—to have become.

Ghost? Monster. _Demon,_ a creature made of old anger and festering wounds growing more painful with each passing year.

No, he is more than that. He is patient. He is ruthless (to himself above all).

This ghost, this memory knows the truth. He (or it. For, sometimes, he thinks of himself this way, a thing, inhuman, in no way a man. _It_ ) will smile in a way far more frightening than anything the human man he pretends to be (and sometimes believes himself to be) could manage when he finally slips his leash and roams free.

This shadow hiding behind his eyes sees the curse the queen made and, sometimes, is amused by it. What was the strength of her lily white stepdaughter, after all? Look at the friends she made, look at the men and women, the powers great and small who came together when she called. None of them were great enough alone to defeat her majesty but, together, they were a tidal wave sweeping her from her throne. 

So, here they are, together yet separate, cowering behind doors, not knowing how to gather strength and fight the evil threatening them even if they knew what they were fighting for.

He cowers, too. Perhaps, the power of his own curse would protect him, perhaps not. But, he thinks of the knowledge the queen’s curse has woven into his bones (this body which is and is not the one he knows): _Outside is death._

He stays within. He waits. He does not push against the prison of his mind, pressing against bars stronger than the fairy dust soaked fangs that once held him in their maw. 

Only once has he pressed against them (or perhaps he did not, perhaps the memory is only another lie), at the beginning of this curse, when he saw _her._

The queen is a liar. He has always known she was a liar. Yet, he had believed her. She told him a tale he knew must be true because, though seer’s sight had never shown it to him, in his heart, he had always known it could only end one way.

Until this curse began. Until he saw her and some part of him, hidden and buried away saw how wrong he had been _._

She had been running as the seconds counted down, the (well-named) deadline crashing in on them. In moments, it would be too late. She would be dead in this world as well as the other. He had called out, giving her refuge.

Or had he? Was that memory also a lie? So many are in this world. Is this another shard of the curse? To see himself as her rescuer when she is trapped, locked away, and he is her jailer, to delude himself when he has sealed her away in another tomb. 

If she is real. If she is even there. If desperate belief that she lives is not the cruelest of the queen’s lies.

He takes his offerings to her door. He places them there, knocks, and leaves. It is death in this world to do more, to touch, to speak. He dares not look upon the face of his god and live.

Yet, the offerings are taken. As the endless cycle begins again and he finds the books he has given her back on his shelves, along with whatever new ones the curse sees fit to provide, he finds her words written in them.

Surely, she is there. Surely, she lives.

Surely, someday, the lost princess, drawn by fate, will find her way home, breaking this curse of death and isolation.

Royal hands are the hands of a healer. So, prophecy told him. So, he trusted.

The door will open. Cell or tomb, the captive will be set free.

He imagines her smiling when the prisoners are freed and memory returns. He imagines her angry, remembering how he hurt her and others.

He imagines her dead and pale upon the floor, Regina’s last joke, to make her the final victim of this plague.

So, he waits, not knowing, never crossing the barrier between himself and the man her majesty has cursed him to be. Mr. Gold adds and subtracts his numbers, keeping his tallies of what is owed and what is given. He reads his books and plays his cello. 

As the music echoes through the empty house, which even he seems not to hear, his face gives away nothing except the depths of his concentration. It might be nothing more than the tally of a bill, a puzzle of numbers well-rendered. Yet, the music aches with grief, with loss, with hope and love, telling a story that has yet to be revealed.

Mr. Gold remains unmoved. The only other inhabitant of the house, if she is there at all, cannot hear it.

And the splinter of his soul sits by, listening, waiting to learn what the music means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is not meant to be negative about social distancing (thought it needed saying). Back in March, when I started this, I was still finding my balance (and dealing with anxiety, lots of anxiety). The curse in this story doesn't just isolate people, it deprives them of alternatives to that isolation, talking on line or simply making a phone call. Even wordless things, like music, aren't capable of crossing the barrier. The only contact Belle and Gold have is indirect, the comments they write and passages they underline in books.
> 
> So, if reading this gives you a desperate need to reach out and hug someone, give them an air hug from a safe distance.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this at the beginning of self-isolation when each day seemed overwhelming. Under the curse, this Storybrooke is trapped in that early state of fear. The nature of its pandemic is less clear. Is the disease what makes the outside deadly? Is there some kind of martial law and breaking quarantine is deadly for other reasons? Gold and Belle don't know. Like people in a nightmare, they only know that leaving means death.


End file.
